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Ohio State President E. Gordon Gee left the university yesterday without a final retirement
package or an agreement about how he’ll continue to serve the school he has loved for so long.

“The board and Dr. Gee are working through the details of Dr. Gee’s new role at the university,
and we will make those available as soon as they are finalized,” OSU spokeswoman Gayle Saunders
said.

Gee has said he doesn’t want to get in the way of the search for a replacement or make it
difficult for the new president. But he also has expressed a desire to teach in the law school and
continue to raise money.

OSU Provost Joseph A. Alutto, who planned to retire at the end of the month and had been in line
to become Columbus City Schools’ acting superintendent, officially takes over on Monday.

Alutto, 72, and his senior team have been preparing for the transition for the past several
weeks, Saunders said. “He is ready to assume his new responsibilities.”

Officials have not announced how much Alutto will make in his new post. He was paid a base
salary of $554,500 as provost.

Gee, 69, announced his plans to retire on June 4, amid criticism over jokes he had made last
fall poking fun at Catholics, Notre Dame University and other schools.

Gee is the only president to lead OSU for two terms, from 1990 to ’97 and returning in 2007. He
is also one of the nation’s top-paid university executives, with a total compensation package of a
little more than $2.1 million.

In an email to the campus community yesterday, Gee expressed his “deep respect and affection”
for the students, faculty and staff at Ohio State.

“Each of you is a personal gift to me which I will cherish,” he wrote. “I now move across the
Oval, and do so with great pride in what we have accomplished together.”

Many of the details about former OSU President Karen Holbrook’s package also weren’t revealed
until after she had left the Columbus campus.

The Ohio State board approved a $250,000 bonus — more than twice the $95,041 called for in
Holbrook’s contract — during a private meeting a month before she left the campus in June 2007. But
university officials didn’t reveal that they had paid her $250,000 until a month later.

Figuring out the compensation package for an outgoing president, especially for someone with as
much experience as Gee, can take some time, said Charles Taylor, executive vice president of the
Hollins Group, a search firm that often works with universities.